Electrical feedthroughs are commonly used to transfer electrical power and signals between a device within a vacuum chamber and equipment positioned outside the vacuum chamber. For example, some devices in a vacuum chamber, such as thermal evaporation sources or substrate heater, need electrical power from the exterior of the vacuum chambers. In addition, some devices in vacuum chambers, such as temperature sensors or measurement devices, have to send signals to equipment outside of the vacuum chambers for analysis.
An electrical feedthrough for these environments is generally an airtight passage mounted on the wall of a vacuum chamber. One or more conductors may be provided in an electrical feedthrough. Each conductor is surrounded by insulators to keep it insulated from the wall of the chamber. The insulators may be glass or ceramic materials.
Some electric feedthroughs have glass-to-metal seals with pin contacts used with standard connectors. Some other approaches use ceramic-metal brazed pins mounted on metal flanges. These conventional feedthroughs are not easily customizable. For example, they cannot provide higher density custom arrays of contacts with higher voltage standoffs from contact to interface and contact to contact. It is thus desirable to have an improved electrical feedthrough that is customizable and reliable for making an electrical connection between vacuum and atmosphere chambers.
It is within this context that aspects of the present disclosure arise.